OCT 22 2009: After a lengthy wait,
Windows 7 is finally out to the public. We've been beta testing the
development releases & were quite impressed - a result very dissimilar to Vista
at its launch. It is rare we praise things (as its our nature as Techs to
be to the contrary), but from what we have seen in the beta stages & with
several months of use of the final release product, we can give it our blessing.
Windows XP has a successor, particularly in the business community, where XP has
been clung onto despite its security porosity & stability issues.
Quicker than Vista, & very similar to XP in speed, this elegantly written
code has delivered on many fronts. Yes it's more secure & more
stable, better multi-core CPU performance, general performance improvements,
faster to boot, as that is to be expected; but it delivers the "experience" that
had been long not part of the World of Windows. The interface is intuitive
and less cluttered, with the side bar gadgets now mobile on the desktop.
Funky little features, such as the title bar "shake" - which drops all other
open apps to the task bar, actually enhance productivity, hence will be well
adopted. Many other desktop features, including "Snap", "JumpLists" & "Task Bar
Preview" (I'll leave it to the reader to discover them) have been well targeted,
not at improving on Vista or XP, but rather head-on towards Apple Mac's "Snow
Leopard". We've even heard Mac Techs praise Win 7's interface in various
podcasts - hard earned praise indeed! Windows users should all be
delightfully impressed.
Networking works well, particularly between Win 7 PCs, as with its big brother
Server 2K8SP2. Simplicity and security is at hand in this field for the
novice, with "HomeGroup" - an easy way of sharing files, pictures and music
within your group of PCs.
One knock-out feature, which has been around for a long time now, but now
actually works, is the online driver search facility. We understand much
energy & resources have been focussed, by MS, towards getting this area working;
it has paid off! As an example, we installed Win 7 FULL version into a new
partition on an old XP machine. 20 minutes later, a few reboots & bingo, all the
craziest, weirdest drivers on this rather complex & hotch-potch pc were
attained. This blew us away. Normally driver searching takes many hours,
often days to nut out. Did we mention the Win 7 installer auto configured
the bootup of the PC to a multi-boot option, so the old XP install could be
selected to boot into, or the new Vista install... very sweet indeed.
On a similar note, if upgrading to Win7 in to PCs with newer SATA or RAID based
HDD controllers, you may have to be tech savvy to get the job done, or easier
still get a tech to do the job. Also, upgrade means upgrade... don't nuke
the old install & expect it to work... you'll end up with nought.
Win 7's Media Player 12 have proven itself to be a core computing component. At
last it plays just about anything, with generous codec support. No longer
do you have to have 4,5, or 6 different players to support the media file
types. Let's hope MS maintain this jewel by continuing to support the
evolving file-types/codecs. MP12 offer sharing of media through streaming
facility to other local computers, stereos, TVs and even over the net.
The printer support in Win 7 is the largest of any windows product, with older
printers working like a treat, automatically installing drivers upon pnp
detection. One small gripe is with printer support, we see not as a
Microsoft flaw, rather one belonging to printer manufacturer's, is with newer
printers. The printer manufacturers have had ample time to get their act
together, so why is it they (again) fail to support their newer ranges
adequately when a new OS comes to town. Even brand new printers can have
issues. You really need to check the manufacturer's local web site for the
latest software, and have ample download left on your isp account - as some are
300+MB..ouch!
Flavours of Win 7 (32bit & 64bit) presenting to the Australian public for
general sale include :
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Windows 7 Professional
- Windows 7 Ultimate (pricing
click here)
"Media Center" is included in all above versions, allowing with the add-in of a
TV tuner card/device, the viewing & recording of TV shows to your PC. In
general terms, Home Premium is adequate for the majority of Home usage.
Pro offers networking & back up enhancements (not forgetting full remote desktop
support), as such is mandatory for all business
users or SOHO users. Ultimate is for the techs, gamers, geeks and
enterprise users. 32bit versions are adequate for most other users, with
3-4GB of RAM addressablility. The evolving 64bit OS is where many power
users will head towards more RAM (currently 192GB supported). The speed
differential is minimal between 64 & 32bit versions, with 64bit being a tad
faster - though not physically detectable. If you're not sure which way to
go, give us a
call.
Win 7 will be your next evolution in your Windows computing, as it will be ours.
Don't forget data management is one of VILLAGE PCs' many strengths, rather than
risk data loss in the migration to Windows 7, let us manage the process for you.
TIP1:
DON'T INSTALL ANYTHING WITHOUT
ASSESSING THE VALIDITY OF THE PROGRAM
TIP2:
WEB POP-UPS ARE
OFTEN MISLEADING AND MAY COMPROMISE YOUR SECURITY & PC INTEGRITY
TIP3: BE WARY OF
POP-UPS ANNOUNCING YOU HAVE INFECTIONS, OUTSIDE OF YOUR OWN SECURITY
SUITE, THEY ARE PROBABLY FAKE & MAY CAUSE MANY ISSUES
TIP4:
DON'T GIVE CREDIT CARD OR PERSONAL
INFO ACROSS THE WEB UNLESS YOU HAVE ADEQUATE SECURITY COUNTER MEASURES
IN PLACE. CONTACT YOUR BANK & YOUR I.T. REPRESENTATIVE IF UNSURE.
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